Musings on the world of software from the sharp end of the long tail
Posted in Uncategorized on Sep 2nd, 2008
[root@localhost sharps]# yum install chrome
Loaded plugins: refresh-packagekit
Setting up Install Process
Parsing package install arguments
No package chrome available.
Nothing to do
[root@localhost sharps]#
Isn’t Google missing the key AlphaGeek / Early adopter constituent ? Last time I was at a technical conference - it was PowerBooks and home-brew linux distro’s all the way - not much Windows.
Is your mainstream Windows [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jul 16th, 2008
Reposting here, an entry from the Nancy Cooper blog. I’ve been meaning to post something today but these words work better than any I could write :
Nancy was murdered.
We are bereft. While the family have lost “a spoke in their wheel”, we have lost the hub of ours.
Hopefully those affected can draw on the strength [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jul 13th, 2008
July 14th Update : Grim news - female body found floating in pond just a mile or so from Nancy’s home - I’m guessing identification will be quick. Not good. More from WRAL.
July 14th Update : There’s a lot more info. on this site : search maps, regular updates and information on getting involved with [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jun 17th, 2008
I’ve been involved in middleware long enough to remember when it could easily cost $75k just to get up and running with a Java application server (hardware and software licenses). How far things have come - as of today you can use Amazon EC2 to run JBoss instances so your capital investment is approximately zero; [...]
Posted in Red Hat, Uncategorized on Jun 2nd, 2008
Have you ever been in that situation where you’ve quickly developed your cool new app using JBoss only to be told by your boss that you have to port it over to some other vendor’s dinosaur of a run-time because it’s the “corporate standard” ?
Does it frustrate you that your IT department standardized on a [...]
Posted in Red Hat, Technology, Uncategorized, open source on May 18th, 2008
Last week I installed Fedora 9 on my laptop and so far I like what I see - the desktop and visual effects are pretty nice without being to much of a distraction. Security is pretty solid with encrypted disk and SE Linux if you need it. All in all - everything seems to hang [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on May 12th, 2008
Sun was pushing JavaFX pretty hard at JavaOne this year - as it was last year; but still no actual product. My intial reaction to JavaFX (the scripting language formerly knows as F3) was pretty positive - but that was almost 2 years ago. The phrase “Better late than never” is true for Mother’s Day [...]
Posted in Enterprise, Red Hat, Uncategorized on Apr 24th, 2008
JON 2.0 sounds like a cheesey-made-for-cable film you’d find on SciFi channel during the afternoon (not that I would know).
But it’s not - JON stands for JBoss Operations Network. There’s a myth that open source ‘products’ tend to be a bit rough around the edges, not easy to use, no flashy consoles, etc. Well, JON [...]
Posted in Uncategorized, open source on Mar 14th, 2008
By way of Matt Assay (at c|net) - the US Navy - likely one of the world’s largest employers and users of technology just announced that they will no longer accept closed, proprietary technology. I liked this quote from Vice Adm. Mark Edwards (deputy chief of naval operations for communications) :
Above all, we must break [...]
Posted in Technology, Uncategorized on Feb 27th, 2008
I have FileVault enabled on my MBP thinking it was a responsible way to protect work-related proprietary information from falling into the wrong hands; turns out it’s actually quite easy (for a dedicated hacker) to crack the password / key according the this CNET article. Some pretty interesting ideas about salvaging information from memory. Hopefuly [...]